Master and Servant
by Sekah
Summary: When Kurama is nabbed by enemies of the Three Kings, ending up on the slavers' block, he's sure his situation couldn't get any worse. Then Karasu appears, plunging Kurama into a hell of Karasu's own creation.
1. Argenta

_Author's Note: I'm getting almost predictable. Osoimaru, this is for you; and Mika, happy birthday!_

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><p>The shame of standing on the slavers' block was intolerably worse for Kurama whenever he glanced at the vain expression on Karasu's face. Only avoiding fleeting looks in his direction allowed him to subdue the humiliated ache in his chest at his own weakness, and ignore that he stood there trussed up like some common bed slave, or an animal dragged to market.<p>

The red Makaian suns beat down on his naked body, round and unblinking as three familiar eyes. Despite the muggy heat and the stink of bodies unwashed and humans and lesser youkai butchered and burned for meat, Kurama fought down shivers. He couldn't protest his bindings—couldn't, in fact, speak at all, a very neat charm put in place by his first captors, to keep him from revealing himself. Whether they had done so because they didn't want the slavers trumpeting their find stupidly until the news reached the extended networks of Yomi and Mukuro, or because they didn't want the price to be driven down, was up in the air. Kurama tried to keep his face level as the sale was concluded, and Karasu stepped forward, eyes lecherous as he was led over to inspect his prize.

Kurama didn't want to know how the bastard youkai had managed to return to life, or how he came to be at this auction, so routine in the Makai. He did, however, long for a way to wipe that cruel smile from his enemy's strangely mask-less face—or at least a chance to stare back at him boldly without the stinging curl of the lash or another round of the drugs they'd filled him with, which had finally been allowed to dissipate a few hours before the auction.

Kurama's eyes narrowed in mortification when he was turned roughly and bent over, the manacles around his ankles twisting and nearly making him stumble into an ungraceful heap. The sweaty fingers of the slave trader poked and prodded intimate flesh, followed swiftly by digits that were longer, smoother and slimmer, covering the same ground at a slower pace. Kurama saw Karasu smile out of the corner of his eye when a shiver crept up Kurama's exposed back, and hated him.

"Do you attest that the slave you've just purchased is in good condition, and still virgin, as promised?" the grubby trader wheezed, trying to catch his breath in the hot air and keep up his oily demeanor, clearly delighted. Kurama was unsurprised, and nearly lost himself enough to sneer—though he hadn't heard the final bid, the last numbers that had made their way into his ears had been lofty indeed.

"I do," Karasu chuckled, clearly amused, and Kurama wanted to strangle the life from him with something acid-drenched and riddled with spikes.

"Good, good," the trader simpered, clapping his hoary hands together enthusiastically, making droplets of sweat splatter. Kurama winced and watched carefully as Karasu's face twisted into an expression of distaste. "Now, I'll give you the standard restraining devices, and if you'll come this way, we have an absolutely wonderful selection of things to help your new property learn his place."

Kurama's back arched in shocked anger. He forced himself to relax, unable to resist working skillfully at the manacles that curled around his wrists in an uncomfortable figure eight.

The bomb was unexpected—so much so that Kurama had no time to stifle the shocked yell, drawing heated eyes. Karasu grabbed him around his suddenly bleeding arm and pulled, shaking him brutally. Kurama's muscles tightened reflexively as his head jerked from the rough treatment, and then he was curled on the ground, face stinging from a vicious slap. "Now lovely, if I were to return to find you outside of your fetters, I would be quite displeased."

Kurama swallowed a snarl, probing the cuts on the inside of his mouth with his tongue, enraged by the taste of his own blood. He didn't raise his head, however, and could almost feel the smug pleasure radiating from Karasu. Kurama welcomed it. Arrogance would make Karasu careless, and there was little Kurama wanted more than carelessness.

"Anfer," the tinny voice of the old trader hissed, "take down this slave and tie him to the sold post. I will be back shortly."

That name Kurama knew, and he cringed when the thick, scaly arms, rippling with muscle, sprang the lock keeping his shackles to the stage and dragged him down over splintered wood and into the filthy and lifeless dirt, deprived of even a single blade of grass. Growth had long since drained from this area from the blight of wards and the pain of those dragged through. Some carnivorous flowers suckled under a nearby whipping post, standing up pertly to lick the droplets of blood, but that was all that grew within a mile of here, and Kurama couldn't find it in himself to be glad of those.

"A shame you passed the virgin test, pretty one," the hulking demon muttered into Kurama's cheek, his breath sodden with the sick tang of blood, repeating those sentiments for the twentieth time since Kurama had come under his care. Anfer's hands pawed crudely at the kitsune's nude body, roughly handling him as they passed stalls and cages where other demons sat in thrall on this busy market day, heading towards the giant pillar of metal and wood that jutted into the sky in the middle of the smoke-wreathed camp.

The column was an eyesore made of poor workmanship and iron rings set deeply into the burnt wood, painful to Kurama's aesthetic sensibilities, like the rest of this enclave. This was where slaves who'd been sold were kept until their master came to claim them. Kurama was hardly happy to see it, or be hooked onto one of the rings next to a mouse demon with soft chestnut fur, who looked around shyly, cringing when things came too close. The only good thing Kurama could find was that in this position Anfer couldn't continue to grope him, or whisper promises into his ear that made Kurama blanch with rage.

Kneeling in the dust was difficult for Kurama to do comfortably, especially since the ground was wet with what seemed to be a mixture of blood and urine. His aching bruises and bare knees protested the force with which he'd been pushed down, and the manacles oddly manipulated his arms—though there was little he could do about his discomfort. Kurama had his pride—though it made the stripes that bled down his thighs leak and sting, he knelt painfully upright and kept his chin raised, staring imperiously back at the traders and clients that ran their eyes pitilessly over his and the other slaves' helpless forms.

Once upon a time Kurama had despised the slavers as vermin, unworthy of stealing from, and had killed them wherever he found them. Then, it had never occurred to him that he might one day find his way to being tied up in a cell that was broiling in the daytime and freezing at night, with metal underneath him so unforgiving that laying too long in one position gave him bruises.

The impossible had been done. A very neat act of espionage by enemies of the three kings had catapulted Kurama from a routine mission to subdue an uprising in the far corners of Yomi's kingdom to this stinking place, far out of the lords' control, forcing him to sit and wait for a chance, no matter how small, to return to friendlier territory and then wreak revenge on his erstwhile captors.

With argenta clouding his system and the sophisticated slave wards keeping him cowed, he hadn't had that chance yet. He closed his eyes, however, knowing it was only a matter of time, though he didn't smile. The precious chance might not come until after Karasu had had his way with him, and that was unacceptable.

"Your name is Anfer, isn't it?" Kurama's shocked eyes widened to the roundness of coins at the sudden proximity of Karasu's voice. The hateful man was standing next to the boorish hulk of blue-green flesh crammed into a pair of skin trousers, Anfer, who had been in charge of his cell.

Kurama closed his eyes, remembering his body, drugged into helplessness, being held in that bastard's naked lap one terrible night, the massive aqua cock rubbing along Kurama's flesh as fat, clawed fingers stroked Kurama's delicate penis and then his own, not penetrating for fear of damaging the traders' property.

Kurama wanted to shake his head to rid himself of the drug-addled memories of Anfer whispering, "Pretty, such a pretty young thing," and promising to buy him back if he displeased his new master, to keep him and teach him a slave's place. Kurama remembered how he'd been left, shivering with the fear and humiliation that was made more acute by the argenta, after the semen, his own and Anfer's, was wiped hurriedly from his body.

That was the only of Anfer's assaults Kurama could remember, but he was certain there were others, locked beneath the memories wiped by drugs.

"ÖSo we have reached an agreement," Karasu finished smoothly, and Kurama realized suddenly that he hadn't been listening to the conversation, sunk in the horrible memories of his first experience with violation. He looked up sharply, finding both the men watching him, and a sour look crossed his face. "Where are your lodgings?" Karasu finished, his eyes on Kurama but the question posed to Anfer, who had a look on his face and a mountain in his pants that made Kurama cringe and stare, his throat bathed in ice. What had he missed?

A lot, it turned out. The room he was dragged into at the back of the trading post spoke of lived-in squalor, gaudy things like a gold chamber pot barely hiding the common meanness of the room itself, the sheets that had seen too many sweaty bodies and too few cleanings, the old blood stains and ratty rug, the tatty curtains over a barred window and gouges in the off-white wall, from what, Kurama couldn't guess. Karasu came in after them, not sitting or leaning on the walls, obviously disgusted by the grime and gauche lack of taste surrounding them.

Kurama fought again as he was picked up and crushed to Anfer's greasy bulk, just a quick flail of his arms and legs that made a shaky moan curl from Anfer's throat. Kurama was grim and soundless as his naked body was gruffly handled. When he opened his mouth to breathe more easily, a hand in his hair curled his body into a painful arch as a tactless mouth closed over his lips and teeth and kissed him, raped his mouth, making Kurama's pride rear up in disgust.

"Pretty thing, pretty thing," Anfer whispered shakily as he stroked the young body, hands petting a flaccid cock and smooth haunch with impunity. Kurama was dropped on his stomach and then left alone, his thin, small form stretched and shaking before them.

Only until his manacles had been hooked into another warded ring. Then Kurama, looking up angrily, saw Anfer peeling off his pants, revealing an ugly, outsized manhood, and climbing onto the bed. Kurama flinched and pulled away from him, only to find another unpleasant dimension to his reality.

The wards on this ring did something to the chains, and when he resisted, crawling to the edge of the bed, he found his back arching like a cat's as he tumbled down, half off the damn mattress, curling into himself as his nerves screamed _pain, pain, pain_ at him. He heard his own yowling cries, and couldn't stop them.

He was pulled back, and abruptly the pain stopped. Blearily, he realized his hips were being maneuvered and lifted, but he was still surprised when he came to, and found Anfer's blubbery lips slavering like a dog's as he leaned over him, waiting for him to rouse. Kurama thrashed and shouted as Anfer grabbed the two buttocks situated cleanly in his hands and forced them apart, his breath stuttering disgustingly as Kurama belatedly kneed at his sides, twisting away from him, only to howl again in pain.

_When I fight,_ Kurama thought once his vision cleared. _I'm incapacitated when I fight._

Having discovered this handicap too late, he looked up at Anfer with hate in his eyes. Anfer grinned, his disturbingly pale irises skittering over Karasu, who stood impassively in the doorway, having clearly never moved a muscle from that spot—his hands in his pockets, his lips smirking, his small, wide eyes swimming with crimson. Smiling at him and licking his lips, Anfer slammed his hips forward, moaning at the sudden tight heat as he neatly breached muscle and flesh, his aim accurate from practice, if nothing else.

Kurama squalled and choked at the sudden unkind entry, his muscles clenching and agony searing up his spine as Anfer immediately began to couple with him, selfish jerks of his hips dragging him in and out hurriedly. Kurama growled, and was once again eaten alive by agony.

Anfer laughed, and Karasu, so silent before now, chuckled.

Kurama went up into his head, where music and his mother and a thousand pleasing thoughts and images welcomed his escaping mind, as he was used with all the finesse allocated to the cheapest of whores.

Then it was over, and Kurama came sinking back to his body slowly, the whole rape so perfunctory that Anfer didn't even stay on the bed, immediately rising with a grunt to wipe off his cock, leaving Kurama laying where he'd been left on the dirty blanket, shaking.

Karasu was too shocked to register or react to being whisked away once Anfer undid his chains, a hand on the back of Kurama's neck marching him out the cloth-hung door and away from the slave traders' enclave, Kurama's eyes blurry and his feet stumbling as he was dragged out into the cold, bright world.


	2. Water

Kurama existed in a sick void of memories and pain, his thoughts still numb enough to damp the gasoline fire that promised to rage out of control once awareness, that potent match, licked the first fumes. For the moment, Kurama was oblivious to the humidity that sucked sweat from his skin and loosened his muscles. In the agonizing times when Kurama did come out of himself enough to feel, he was amazed at the absence of his emotions. A plug had been pulled somewhere deep inside him, letting all his thousand-year experiences drain out of him like slime, oozing down his calves and leaving an unctuous residue in his footsteps. He didn't want to walk—wanted, in fact, to lie down in his own bed and feel nothing for a while—but his dissipated energy and slack frame meant nothing to the crow.

Karasu, all white and black angles, marched Kurama from the decrepit rag door that had hidden his rape from sight, if not sound, and over the plank walkways that had been dug into this part of the slaving enclave. The crow kept his eyes narrowed against the three titian suns, his lips wry and pasty in the sharp light. Kurama was guided absentmindedly by the scruff of his neck from the southern edge of the camp, where the workers and cohorts lived in ragged communal lodgings only a step up from those of the slaves, and back to the gathering crowds of the main thoroughfare.

He had no eyes for the slaves who were being prepared for market in this area, roughly bathed in a demon-made pool, a wooden basin hedged with lath domiciles and arcs of metal that allowed running chains to slide through them. A primitive assembly line was formed as slaves were pushed into the water, slapped with soap powder, and then scrubbed with long brushes. Some of the slaves were listless; others actively helped their cleaning in the murky, cycling water, rubbing and splashing the dirtiest areas with their hands. Like sheep being sheared, at the end they were dunked fully into the water and then unhooked from the running chain and brusquely dried with towels. Afterwards, workers smeared their skin with oil, spelled for good effect, and occasionally painted dripping numbers on them with red dye, thick and clotted as blood. The sheen soaked in to make musculature stand out boldly, making workers look stronger and pleasure slaves more erotic. The slaves at the end of the assembly line were led away, shivering jerkily in intense heat.

Karasu steered Kurama through the broad, muddy streets, only paying fleeting attention to where they were going. He ignored the demonic hustle and bustle that surrounded them, and gave cursory sneers to the creatures they passed, his wicked gaze fixed solely on one target: Kurama. Karasu was enjoying the movements of Kurama's limp arms, the slackness around his lips, which were pursed and tight and shaped like an archer's belovéd bow, in Karasu's magniloquent opinion; his patrician brow and delicate features; the liquid that dribbled down his inner thighs, giving them a shine that was quickly gathering dust; etc.

Karasu, supercilious as ever, waxed poetic at the superb nature of his captive, exciting his lust and running gleaming eyes over everything, leaning back to catch ass and thighs, weighing the idea of fucking Kurama right here, in front of everyone they passed. Karasu's examination ran over every part of Kurama's body, savoring it, and if Kurama were more aware, the scrutiny would have been humiliating. In the fluidity of Kurama's thoughts, however, Karasu's presence and leers couldn't intrude. Still, Karasu's mouth twitched open in satisfaction, pleased with himself. He led Kurama away like a dog with an abused pup, digging fingers into his neck to guide him forcefully down the main causeway of the sprawling, gaudy camp.

The trained slaves were clustered on blocks, rostrums, platforms, in cages, strung out on chain lines, all blinking owlishly, their eyes lights flickering on briefly and then turning off—some simply off. Like ningen show-dogs at a kennel, they were done up in ribbons: wraps, simple togas, exotic tunics, cloth shirts and loose, too-heavy pants, with a number of them, as Kurama had been, wearing no clothing at all. The broken slaves were accentuated with adornments—jewelry in some cases—and always, the gleaming crisscross of chains. Patterned or simplistic, the manacles befitted their wearer's price and usefulness, facts they wore with resignation and no pride. The gazes of these chattels slid listlessly from faces to feet, as though by not seeing, there could be no one else existent but them.

The untrained were both easier and harder to spot, noticeable for their newly-marred skin and more bulky restraints. They glared at Kurama defiantly as he passed by them, coming into and out of their lives in moments, asking him with enraged eyes why he didn't do what they could not: leave, gather allies the demon way, and return triumphant. Kurama was thinking of nothing at all, not even of pride; they saw nothing more in him than a pretty bed slave. Kurama, one of the most influential demons in the Makai, was not there.

Karasu pulled Kurama past the garish colors of the festival tents, painted in greens, yellows, purples and blues by dye that had over years begun to bleed, staining the ground around their feet a dull maroon. The tents were as diverse in size and hue as the demons who frequented them, some of the poles that held the sturdy canopies in place so bent and lopsided they appeared to be held up by magic. This gave even the smallest structures a bulky aura that a passer-by could, with careful consideration, realize was an illusion. The tents, the makeshift buildings crammed alongside them, and the shined iron of the show cages were all piled so close together they were practically on top of each other, cloth and metal alike bright, but crisscrossed with grime. Filth bred and multiplied in this camp—even the places the slavers tried to keep appealing wore down in the end, patches of rust peeking through, minute tears in the cloth letting out the putrid smoke of the burning flesh inside.

Kurama's jade eyes, blinking wildly but ultimately blank, weren't looking at the ground so much as the sky, and the heat waves in the sweltering air; or perhaps at nothing at all. Kurama's excellent balance was the only thing keeping him on his feet as he slid occasionally in the oily patches of blood and bile that turned the otherwise compacted dirt to slime. Kurama had gritty oyster streaks up his legs—Karasu, more aware, was avoiding the filthier patches as he marched Kurama through the teeming throngs of demons that got in their way or out of it depending on stupidity and power levels. They passed the hawkers, the progressively more tawdry fortune-tellers, and the other hangers-on that sought to sell their wares to those drawn here for the dirty pride of owning a slave, or of eating the meat of a fully sentient creature.

Once they were past those vermin, Kurama still in shock and Karasu enraptured by Kurama's nearness, the final few clusters of demons on the outskirts of the trading post melted away. The camp, which reeked of impermanence, was surrounded on every side by its last outposts, three-sided bamboo huts which were manned by scaly, monstrous creatures that kept watch, for marauders, family or friends of the recently captured or sold, roaming gangs of bandits or armies that were little better, anyone who wanted what the slave traders had. The grim demon mercenaries who defended the enclave stood, fondling weapons like babies in their mother's arms, surprisingly high-level bodyguards thanks to the slavers' elevated abilities to pay.

Kurama got a passing glance and a leer under braided dreadlocks from a tusked, barbaric-looking troll with a hefty pike, but that was the only attention paid to them. A ten-minute walk over the baked and cracking earth, kicking up dust, had the two enemies cresting the hills outside of the circle of blight, Karasu's eyes greedy and smug as he led Kurama down into a thin stretch of trees that barely concealed a hectic byway, shaking him sometimes when his limbs refused to move, making Kurama's teeth clatter.

Past the low, brackish shrubs and bramble that clumped under the trees, the dirt road Karasu and Kurama joined was meager and poorly maintained, but overcrowded. It thinned and narrowed quickly, the discarded bones and occasional dirty gravestones piled along its ditches and grassy verges replaced bit by bit with whispering, long-limbed trees, demon oak, beech, yew, sycamore, fir and hornbeam, which, thanks to their Makaian hardiness, could survive heat and blight that their Earthly cousins could not—survive, even thrive, ivy and creepers that would strangle a lesser youkai in an instant barely encircling their massive trunks.

While they lasted, the inscriptions on the gravestones held Karasu's interest briefly, but lost it when he found them unreadable. Even the newest ones were worn to nothing, or smashed, or written in tongues that Karasu couldn't understand, having little to do with more uniform dialects of Makaian. Many of the graves had been dug up, some decorated by the remaining splinters of bone where the marrow had been sucked out and the calcium crunched between big teeth. The piled carcasses were eaten less often. A demon with a grave was at peace in Spirit World or in a cycle of rebirth, but one whose body had been flung to the side of the road could easily still haunt the bones. Kurama wasn't paying attention, or he would have noticed the faint, malicious power pulsing from one bleached skeleton, pristine but for a separation of its spine where it had been stabbed in the back, that looming mountainously next to several other bone heaps.

Pedestrians and carts pulled by strange beasts milled together, the citizens of the demon world plodding along with grim determination, wind sprites carousing unnoticed in the cloudless yellow air above them, dropping laughter like stones on the heads of solitary demons. The congestion settled down abruptly after Karasu turned and sharply forced Kurama to follow a more peaceful intersection under a huddle of trees dripping with ripe, tantalizing fruit that Kurama would have identified as poisonous, making the constant squalling noise surrounding them morph into half-sinister (as the Makai always was) quiet.

The ragged travelers that followed them the first few miles were progressively more rare as they followed turn after turn, by-way after by-way. Finally Karasu looked up to find with pleasure that the other demons were gone altogether, leaving only the secret murmurs of the forest, the animals that fled Karasu's malicious will, though the crow still let his power pulse haughtily to ward off any weaker opponents, with too much of a rein on it to tempt the stronger ones. Kurama stumbled along at Karasu's side, eyes blinking lazily and nostrils flaring.

The winding, pastoral road petered out slowly, until Kurama was dragged over a trail-less hill of soft grasses and captivating flowers that clung to his legs and rippled almost with the movement of tides, though the light caress of the day's torrid winds shouldn't have made such violent tremors. Sprites of water, wind and air hung from the trees all around them, yellow eyes round as they cowered from their stronger demon brethren. Karasu began to cackle, his voice echoing like the rattling of dry leaves on a still night, a sharp contrast to the day, which for the demon world could be considered pretty.

He was still giggling to himself when they surmounted the soft dabs of baby blue flowers, a path of which now lay crushed and delicately bleeding from Karasu and Kurama's feet. The rushing sound that had been overtaking them finally solidified into the sudden roar of a small river, glittering silver with foam as it hastened through the massive, bulging roots of old trees that dipped branches in the water, huddled over it in the manner of tired old men, their boughs dappling the sunlight.

The river was fast and thick, intent on carving away the leaves and clay of the forest. A shallow pool lay off the main rapids near where Karasu and Kurama stood, a calm and clear break-off part of the water that was protected by shale and sand and the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, creating a series of clear puddles filled with entwining yellow flowers. The flowers were frequented by lazily fluttering butterflies, pale white and larger than their ningen-kai cousins as they stirred their wings, opening and closing them restlessly. A creek stumbled out of the river just below the pool, running off-kilter and then disappearing into its own bank without a second thought. Equally sans hesitation, Karasu stalked down the clay embankments and, with a penetrating look at their surroundings, threw Kurama into the water.

When his mind slammed back into his body from the nothingness of the trauma-high it had been on, it was like coming out of the depths of the ocean in a dream, only to found the water that surrounded him was real. His breath caught and he choked on liquid. Floundering, he got to his feet coughing fit to die, and sucked in a long breath that was expelled in a gag and a shout. Kurama tried to speak, but couldn't form the words, cursing the silencing charm that had been placed on him.

He watched Karasu strip deliberately to follow him, his black-and-lavender coat dropping in the mottled sunshine, hanging off a berried shrub with tight, spiky leaves. It was grotesque to Kurama. He wanted to scream, to ask the Gods why they allowed this place to look so beautiful when something so ugly was there, why the trees themselves weren't shrieking and dying on the day Youko Kurama was made a whore.

Instead, he began glancing around for a concrete way to escape, and edging towards the rapids. He quickly vetoed the idea of throwing himself in the water and letting it carry him away—with iron manacles on, he was more likely to drown himself than to escape. The idea stopped seeming so far-fetched, however, when the last of Karasu's clothing was neatly folded and placed atop the others, and Karasu came towards him, the look in his eyes daring Kurama to try and evade him.

"Imagine my surprise, Kurama. I come to find a replacement for my last little thing, and I find you." Kurama froze, his back in a startled, angry arch, his throat dry. Karasu's head tilted speculatively. "The other demon I was bidding against was an agent for one of the more—_specialized_—brothels. You should be thanking me." His eyes glittered with mirth, and with so much he desired to say, wanted to say until he was strangled by his need to say it, and nothing able to come out, Kurama snarled. "And you should continue to thank me for staying with you, and not leaving you warded and lashed to the ground with your legs spread, in the perfect position for any taker who happens to wander to this secluded spot."

The smugness in his voice was grating. Remembering that Karasu could probably lip-read, Kurama haughtily mouthed, "Why did you buy me if you were going to give me away for free? "

"Ah, I see. You can't speak." A smile twitched at the corners of Karasu's elegant mouth, thrown into ugly relief in the soft, sunny light. "Poor Kurama. I know how you wish to play the whore, but I will not take money for you." Karasu glided into the pool, which suddenly, though it had been bearably cold before, seemed freezing to Kurama. Karasu shivered in relief: his place was in cold, in darkness, in nighttime—heat for him was only a quick, violent explosion. This was the Spirit Detective's realm, of warmth, light, and day. Still, in moments Karasu had captured the shying fox, fitting his twisting body flush against Karasu's front, a hand on his chains to subdue him. "You are worth nothing, lovely. Worthless." Kurama's body shook against Karasu's skin, so cold it felt hot.

Then Kurama's legs were kicked out from under him, and he collapsed with a squawk into the frothy arms of the river. Kurama twisted his body busily, attempting a fruitless escape, but Karasu ignored it, revealing a slim wooden box he'd been keeping in his left hand. As Kurama beat and clawed, Karasu flicked the clasp open with teeth and a surprisingly pink tongue, and then flipped the case upside down, his hand covering the opening. A white, sweet-smelling bar of soap slid idly into his palm, and Kurama's efforts redoubled, trusting Karasu significantly less far than he could throw him. Kurama was shoved into the river again, his head held under with sadistic delight as a cloth, after a little shake of the box, was appropriated and the box tossed lightly to the shore.

Brusquely, violently, Kurama was scrubbed—flipped over, dragged from the water and plunged back in again, until he finally swallowed river-water instead of air and almost drowned (or at the very least almost vomited). His world had narrowed into a constant upturning mess, and he couldn't keep his composure, couldn't even dream of what composure might feel like. He flailed, he bit, but it had so little effect on Karasu that Kurama eventually lost his head, until finally, Karasu had scrubbed everything he desired, and pulled away. Silt had been kicked up by the struggle and now floated cloud-like in the water, Kurama looking like a handsome dog just come from a bath, standing belligerently and threatening to shake its coat clean. He was trembling, but the indignity of it all bled the seriousness of the situation from his mind, and he was practically sulking as he wrung out his hair.

"Was that necessary?" Kurama wanted to grumble, but was luckily unable to. He kept a wary eye on Karasu, now that he was no longer blinded by water and sand.

The man was coming back, with what looked like a form of demon shampoo. Kurama glared him down silently, one hand idly and gently untangling the knots from his hair, which cascaded down in his back in wet curls. Karasu, eager, gave the game away too early: his hand involuntarily twisted, and Kurama saw what was hidden behind the shampoo, a wicked flash of evil that matched Karasu's eyes. Kurama ran.

When the knife rematerialized at his neck, however, he didn't move—the warning hand on his bicep was unnecessary. He had no illusions about Karasu's speed or willingness—he still didn't know what the crow wanted, and he wasn't going to throw away his chances on a guess that Karasu wouldn't kill him. He swallowed, the bobbing of his elegant adam's apple scraping just a bit against the blade. Kurama shut his eyes and wondered how the hell he was going to get out of this.

Karasu was humming, following the lines of Kurama's gullet, too knowledgeable of blades and skin to make an incision yet. Kurama clamped down on his trembling, standing still and tall, and hateful. It was only partially defiance—a sudden shudder could slit his throat.

"You are very beautiful, Kurama," Karasu muttered, his breath exhaling in a deep, lustful sigh. With so many witty retorts dangling on the edge of his tongue, perhaps it was a good thing he couldn't speak, Kurama ruminated. "Here," Karasu said, almost kindly, and then the knife was gone. Kurama was whipped around, Karasu's superior speed coming into play again, and long before he could react with a struggle the knife was back. Kurama, regaining his balance, went rigid.

"Here," Karasu repeated, and used a firm grip on his hair to press until Kurama lost balance, closing his eyes in recognition that he was about to be sliced open, forced to drown in his own blood, and pleasantly surprised to find his knees hitting the clay bottom instead, a cloud of gritty silt puffing up around his legs.

Karasu smiled. "Suck me well enough and you can keep your hair."

Kurama caught sight, now that it was at eye-level, of Karasu's cock. He blinked, feeling peevish, vindicated, disgusted, and a whole range of other conflicting emotions. Karasu wormed his hand, still holding the knife, under the veil of Kurama's hair, the blade tickling the small locks at the back of his neck—a threat, though not entirely reserved to his hair.

It was quick. It was abhorrent. It left Kurama alive, his mouth tingling, his dignity in tatters.

It did, however, let him keep his hair.


	3. Brothel

Here he was again. Face down, hands coarsely bound, this ratty whorehouse blurring with all the others Karasu had sold him in on the way here. Kurama was sure Karasu didn't need the money. This was meant to fragment him, fracture him into a thousand shattered pieces. It galled him not simply because of pride or shame, but because regardless of Kurama's knowledge, Karasu's tactics were working. Faced with such transparent motivations, Kurama felt he should be able to distance and distract himself. He should. He should be stronger than this.

Kurama coughed into a typical dirty mattress as his first lummox client of the night took him by his neck, claws scraping the tender skin. It crawled, all gangly limbs, until it pinned Kurama beneath its body, and its cock was in position. Kurama closed his eyes; he didn't want to see. The first strokes entering his ass were starting to get disturbingly loose and painful, too many tears inside for his comfort, and too many similar uses for his muscles to remain tight. Kurama thrust his face into the sweaty blankets to hide the drawn-out whine of pain.

Karasu would be asleep in a spare room, safe, comfortable, having paid good money to have the best food from the nearest tavern delivered to him. Kurama knew from experience, however, that were he to kill his client and attempt to escape, no matter the silence, no matter his cunning, he wouldn't make it three steps before Karasu was there. Then Karasu, on the three or four occasions he had tried this particular method of escape, would teach him again, over and over again, that faceless Johns could be endured—Karasu could not.

Kurama was hungry. Beyond hungry, at that place where his stomach didn't even ache anymore, and his limbs felt rubbery and weak from the first stages of malnutrition. Kurama rarely managed to walk anymore when traveling with Karasu. The crow didn't care. He kept Kurama's fetters over his shoulder, dragging him callously over dirty streets and dusty country roads.

Kurama was still naked, still had to mouth the words he couldn't speak. The anger rising within him as he thought of that, the jeers, the humiliation, practically blinded him. The spindly hands of the unknown rapist who took him on a grimy bed in a seedy backwater brothel clenched around his throat. It was far too weak to crush, but their very presence was an insult, and suddenly he had had enough. He reared back and broke its nose with his skull.

The demon cursed up a storm and yanked out his cock. Kurama shuddered at the wet bloody slide of it, and snarled himself. He whipped over, his hands easily compromising the simple knot of the rope securing his wrists. He should have killed the John in one blow. There was no chance Karasu hadn't heard the struggle with the noise this bastard youkai was making.

The demon, a bony middle-aged water kappa, came at him slapping open-palmed, kicking, the way a coward fought. Kurama was not a master of the tactics of dirty streetwise grappling, but with his spirit energy far away it would have to do.

Kurama took a slap and used the momentum to roll off the bed. No sooner did his feet touch filthy carpet than he centered his balance and kicked the demon in his solar plexus, watching dispassionately as the man snapped back into the wall and crumpled, the green neck now clearly in range. Two quick steps and one neat drop kick snapped the spine. The kappa slumped and drooled, his corpse jerking a bit and then stilling, face still confused and angry. Kurama cursed the wasted time, cursed the difficulty of killing a demon with no energy and his hands bound, cursed the punishment he was about to experience, cursed it all to limbo and back.

He glared at the door. Seconds later, it slid open and his master walked through, looking cool and calm and violent. Kurama watched him darkly.

"I know your hands are untied. Get on the bed."

Kurama tried to stand his ground, dropping the rope and pulling forward slim wrists, knuckles positioned to defense, but one blow, a backhanded slap, was all it took to whip him around, blood drooling from a bitten tongue. He slammed stomach-first into the bed, all his breath whooshing out and the mattress too hard to stop his ribs from bruising.

"On your knees," Karasu hissed, "on the bed. Or it will go very hard for you."

Agonized, humiliated, tormented, Kurama did—he crawled up and positioned himself, kneeling with his hands splayed on the bed, shaking but open-legged for his master. He knew full well the kinds of things Karasu was threatening.

"Fox, fox, fox," Karasu sighed, caressing Kurama's ass, first massaging a cheek with his palm, and then running down the cleft with his nails, letting Kurama feel how sharp they were.

_I'm sorry,_ Kurama felt himself whispering soundlessly, like a mawkish girl at a confessional. The weakness of it pierced Kurama with shame, but he still repeated himself, turning his head so Karasu could see his lips move. _Please, Master, I'm sorry._

Karasu smiled at the obedience, but smiled harder, a disturbing glow in his eyes, at he thought of what he was about to do. "When will you learn, Kurama? Your body is not worth protecting. You're just a hole for men to fuck. Until you realize how valueless you are, I'll never be able to stop punishing you, darling. And don't you want me to be gentle with you?"

Kurama began to shake violently, biting his lip and refusing to say anything. He was too afraid not to want to nod his head and agree, too proud to answer affirmatively to a question that had no answer, not even a negative one.

Karasu watched the whore's bruised, sweat-soaked back vibrate with shivers, taking in his quaking legs with narrow eyes. When it became clear that no answer would be forthcoming, Karasu scowled, then hummed to himself.

"You know, I've noticed a certain stubbornness in you, Kurama. I don't like it. This session won't stop until I fuck you. I won't fuck you until you beg me to, nicely. Understood?"

Kurama bared his teeth at the patronizing lilt to Karasu's voice, but couldn't bring himself to resist more than that. Only a couple of weeks and he already knew enough not to provoke him.

But Kurama wanted to make a point, to himself if not to Karasu, and he would not beg preemptively when the pain was just a shadow looming over him.

His lips trembled when he heard the clink and rustle of Karasu's belt being pulled from his pants. He gasped as a hand clenched in his hair, gathering it up and away from his skin. The unremarkable leather coiled around his throat, the end fed back through the buckle and then pulled tight around his neck. He could feel the cold silver against his skin, and he whimpered. The mewl cut off with a brief _hgck_ as Karasu tightened the belt.

His hands pawed at the blankets as something penetrated him, curling miserably to tease his much-abused prostate with a single point. "One finger now, how's that?"

Kurama let out a broken choke, his breath wheezing painfully, lungs beginning, just beginning, to burn.

The finger fucked him for a period, and then finally withdrew, returning with a second. They were curved and curled, rubbing gently one second, garnering a fire in his belly, and scissoring painfully the next.

"My my, Kurama, you're so loose! So different from the first time I fucked you. A third one, here we go."

Karasu's elbow was resting between Kurama's shoulder blades, perfect leverage to keep pulling and _pulling_ on the belt now etched into Kurama's neck. Karasu never pulled too hard, though—no sense in crushing Kurama's windpipe completely.

By the fourth finger, Kurama was writhing. His vision was starting to blacken, and he forgot himself, kicking until Karasu sat on his legs, trying and failing to land an elbow, anything, his movements weak with agony. He felt as if he were underwater, but he was aware of the heat from Karasu's cock as it ground occasionally against his legs.

Then Karasu's whole hand was inside of him, making Kurama's body curl defensively and his blood seep while his fingers clawed desperately at the belt that couldn't be budged, now sunk completely in the tender skin of Kurama's neck. His lips were turning blue. Tears leaked constantly from wide emerald eyes, streaking uselessly down flushing cheeks._I can't see,_ Kurama thought desperately, _I can't see!_

Karasu was fisting him casually, using incredible strength to rip through the muscles and flesh inside Kurama. "Better give in before the damage becomes permanent, lovely," Karasu reminded casually, and then leaned forward to watch Kurama's mouth.

For a moment, Kurama's distressed lips were still parted wide. They trembled, then puckered. Finally, they began to form words.

_Please—please fuck me. Please._ Kurama's eyes narrowed, tears still streaming, his fingers clawing at the belt.

Karasu chuckled libidinously. The belt was released, though it was lodged in the kitsune's flesh and Kurama had to rip it away himself. As it was pulled off, it revealed a tender red circle where the leather had bit. Finally it snaked out fully under Kurama's frantic fingers and fell on the bed, Kurama bent over and sucking in breath with great honking gasps. His hands were crossed like a child making an imaginary bird with his fingers, massaging at his throat as if to flutter away.

Kurama was pulled onto his side long before he was ready, the mattress damp from his own blood. The erection Karasu had been nursing yearned for flesh.

Kurama was fucked and fucked, the thrusts more than his agonized, oxygen-deprived mind could comprehend. He was unconscious long before the end, but Karasu didn't wake him. Pleased, he simply raped the unresponsive body, pretending it was a fresh corpse.

_To be continued_


End file.
